Today's competition requires that many businesses display their wares at trade shows, symposiums, and the like. The wares are often attractively displayed in booths or stalls together with advertising literature and the like.
Most display stalls presently in use consist of basically two types. One is a rather large, heavy display that is structurally sound but which requires extensive on-site preparation and is difficult to transport. The other display system is the type that is carried by a salesman and thus is lightweight, but which does not lend itself to large display requirements. Both systems have limited versatility of use. The more permanent display system is not ordinarily assembled and disassembled with ease, while the portable ones are not often structurally sound or sufficiently large to define a significant area of display. Neither system is ordinarily versatile with respect to possible display configurations.
Several patents exemplify the prior art. Wilson, U.S. Pat. No. 956,252 shows a display folder having foldable members which are creased on opposite faces and secured together at their creases by a securing means. In Wiltz, U.S. Pat. No. 1,076,257 is shown an amusement device having a flat square member divided by perpendicular lines into four corners, and four hinged panels, each panel being hinged at one edge along one of the perpendicular lines. In Swanson, U.S. Pat. No. 3,269,043, a display device is shown having a plurality of panels and stiffener plates which are covered by a cloth covering which foldably connects the stiffener plates together, width edge to width edge, to provide a string of rectangular panels. In Rhude, U.S. Pat. No. 3,325,934 is shown a portable display case for storing, transporting and displaying visual aid materials. In R. E. Hartz, U.S. Pat. No. 3,481,060, a vehicle sign assembly is shown having a plurality of inter-leaved hinged placards on small parallel hinged axes.